Elfborn: The Quest

Training

"Don't count out Denis and his men quite yet, Guile," Frederik replied with a smile. "They are all battle-hardened knights with more skill than most."

"I know Sir Denis well, sire," Guile quickly returned. "And most of the men with him. And that's why I think they'll fail."

"Let's watch and see, hmmm?" Frederik said as his knights finally finished slogging through the last snow drift to approach the space Lash had stamped down to give himself enough space to practice in. They had already drawn their swords.

While Guile disagreed with Denis' choice to draw his weapon, he knew that it wouldn't matter much to Lash. Swords or no, even against other weapons, it made little difference to the lean Hybernian. He could defend any with equal ability. Which was to say, with absolute devastation!

Having seen Lash in action up close and personal, Guile actually found his attention wandering even though King Frederik himself stood beside him. As far as the weaponmaster was concerned, the outcome was already decided. The big man frowned as his thoughts continued to idle. He had heard that Lash had a companion, an Ekossan, if he heard correctly.

Guile's eyes narrowed as they watched Lash blur into action, stepping swiftly inside the defense of the closest knight to send him catapulting through the air with a hammer-hard blow against his chest. If the Ekossan were half as talented as Lash, putting the two together would truly be lethal! 'Now, I heard the boy was put in the enlisted ranks,' he mused as Lash spun around a second knight, his staff whistling through the air, to engage a third. 'He must be one helluva soldier! I wonder where he's been posted.'

Garrett grinned as his companions hissed in amazement when Lash's lightning fast two-pronged attack took out knights number four and five, leaving only their leader, a knight that the sergeant had named as Sir Denis, of Bavria. The five of them, all enlisted men, leaned against the short fence surrounding the practice yard as often they did, to watch the knight-candidates practicing their skills. And today, despite the winds, the chill and the threatening sky, was no different.

Of course, it helped that they had bundled themselves in layer upon layer of clothing against the wet cold that seemed to penetrate through the heaviest tunic and coat to cut right to the bone. While the uniforms that they were given by the quartermaster were of relatively good make, they alone could not withstand the cold that was now pounding the Noran coast. And so the layering began, starting with heavy homespun shirts beneath their uniform tunics and continuing with coat, cloak and gloves.

Garrett rubbed his gloved hands together, trying to coax some warmth back into his icy fingers. While his Elfborn constitution protected him more from the cold than his comrades, it didn't make him completely immune. He blew on them as he ruefully considered how all that layering had failed them today, an especially damp and cold day.

'But they just had to come out and watch Lash work, didn't they?' he thought to himself, almost laughing. The fascination the enlisted men had for the knights at their practice was almost understandable. Most of them were farmer's sons or farmers themselves, torn from their fields by Sir Wilfred's recruiters. As such, they had never seen professional soldiers work before, and hadn't even heard of knights. To see full-grown men sheathed in metal hacking away at each other with massive long swords, axes, maces and clubs stirred the blood in any man. Including Garrett.

And it was even more fascinating to watch Lash at work, being somewhat of a celebrity in a camp where the dogged reality of the approaching war dragged most men's spirits down. It wasn't every day that somebody raised himself from the dead, as the stories said Lash had.

Abruptly Garrett sobered. 'Of course we seem to have a much greater destiny to fulfill than these ... humans,' he grimly thought, his eyes filled with the sight of Lash smoothly disarming Sir Denis before a flat-handed blow to the man's chest slammed him backward, as if he had been shot out of a catapult. 'I just wonder if Lash remembers that!'